Walk to Beautiful: The Power of Love and a Homeless Kid Who Found the Way

by Wayne, Jimmy

  We sat there for a few moments in the dark before Tim pushed the gun toward me and said, “Load it again.”

  Why, Tim? What are we doing out here? I thought but didn’t dare say aloud. This was the first time I had ever questioned Tim. He had always been such a good guy. But that night, at that moment, he wasn’t the stepdad I’d quickly grown to like and trust.

  A voice whispered in my ear, You’re in danger. Get out of the car.

  It was a familiar voice, one that I had heard on Vance Street in times of trouble and another time at a campground when I was ten. Whether it was intuition, the voice of an angel, or the Spirit of God, I don’t know.

  I emptied the gun’s cylinder, then reached down and picked up some used shells off the floorboard. I loaded the spent shells in the cylinder, hoping that Tim was too drunk to notice. I snapped the cylinder shut and handed the gun back to Tim.

  He shoved the gun back at me and yelled at the top of his lungs, “I saw what you did. Put some bullets in the gun!”

  My hands were shaking, and I was getting more scared by the minute. I nervously emptied the used shells out of the cylinder and reloaded the gun with live ammunition from a small cardboard box Tim had on the seat. I handed the gun to Tim and sat motionless in the front seat while Tim finished off the vodka.

  Tim lowered the cup from his lips and threw it on the floor. “Do you know how fast I am?” Tim asked, without turning toward me.

  Before I could even respond, his right arm flashed in the darkness, smashing me in the face with the knuckle side of his closed fist. My head snapped sideways as I felt warm blood squirt from my nose, running down my neck onto my favorite shirt.

  I wanted to scream, cry, or yell out, Tim! What’s wrong with you? Why did you hit me? But I was too frightened to say a word. We sat there in silence. I didn’t dare look at Tim for fear he’d deck me again. I stared straight ahead, looking at a faraway light on the hill. I was afraid to move.

  I started to cry.

  “Shut up!” Tim roared.

  I tried to obey but couldn’t keep from sniffling. A few minutes later Tim suddenly raised the gun and shoved the barrel against the side of my head, mumbling something under his voice. Tim pushed on the gun, and I felt the pressure of the cold, hard gun barrel pressing against my skin and bone.

  The events of the next two seconds seemed to move in slow motion.

  I lifted up my left arm so it was between my body and Tim’s arm while simultaneously turning my head to the right and back toward the seat. At the same time I heard a deafening loud bang! and saw a streak of fire burst past my face.

  My left ear was ringing like a burglar alarm. My face burned from the gunpowder.

  With adrenaline surging through my system, I grabbed Tim’s arm with my left hand and pushed his arm away from my head and down toward the seat. I turned to look at him while grabbing his arm with my right hand. I raised up, then threw my entire body weight down on his arm, eventually working my hands down to the gun and pressing it to the seat.

  “Tim, please don’t shoot me!” I screamed over and over. This was crazy. What had I done? I had never had a cross word with Tim, and now he was trying to kill me? It didn’t make any sense.

  Tim finally relaxed his arm. In response, I slowly released my grip after he let go of the gun. With the gun lying on the front seat, I thought about grabbing it and running, but I was too scared.

  I wouldn’t have had time anyhow. Tim threw the car in gear and quickly backed out to the main road.

  That’s when I noticed the bullet hole in the top right corner of the windshield. The light from the streetlight on the hill created a weird kaleidoscope effect in the spider web of broken glass surrounding the hole in the windshield. It scared me to think that the bullet that had shattered the glass could have been in my head.

  Tim sped down Highway 74, accelerating as fast as he could go, barely negotiating the winding road. Then, while the car was still going, he yanked down on the gear shift, slamming the Olds into reverse. The transmission screeched with a horrendous sound of metal against metal, grinding the gears so loudly I thought the engine was going to explode. Just as it seemed the car was about to shudder to a stop, Tim slammed the car back into drive and stomped down on the gas pedal again. He repeated this several more times; it was as though he was deliberately trying to destroy his dead dad’s car—and maybe us too. The Olds was a warhorse, though, and kept going, so finally Tim turned left and headed back west on Highway 74.

  He pulled into another driveway and stopped, but I was not going to give him a second chance to shoot me. As soon as the car stopped, I ripped open the door. The interior light came on, and Tim instinctively reached over and felt for the gun.

  “I gotta pee!” I lied, as I jumped out of the car and started running. I had purposely left the car door open because I knew if the interior light was on, Tim couldn’t see me but I could see him.

  I ran as fast as I could, trying to get away from the car, glancing behind me every few seconds, looking back over my left shoulder to see if he was following me. I could still see him leaning across the front seat, trying to grab the passenger door handle to pull the door closed.

  I kept running down the median of Highway 74. When I saw the headlights pan across the trees, I knew Tim was backing the car up and heading my way. I dove onto the ground in the high grass of the median as he passed by.

  When I was certain the car had disappeared, I stood up and ran some more. Every time a car approached from either direction, I hit the dirt, diving again into the median. I wasn’t taking any chances. After running several more miles, I finally made it to the convenience store near Sante Trailer Park. I ran to the phone booth and dialed the operator.

  When a woman answered, I practically yelled into the phone, “Please, help me! My stepdad was trying to shoot me.”

  “Slow down, son,” the woman said. “What’s your name?”

  “Jimmy! Jimmy Wayne Barber. And my stepdad’s name is Tim. Tim Allen. Please! You gotta help me. He’s gonna kill me.”

  The woman seemed unfazed. Instead of sending help, she peppered me with more questions. I tried answering as many as I could, but then I saw a car approaching. I hung up the phone and ran across the parking lot and up the street that led to our trailer. It seemed unusually dark; there were no lights on in the trailer, but when I crept up and tried the front door, I was relieved to find it was unlocked.

  Tim’s car wasn’t in the driveway, but I couldn’t tell whether he was inside or not. A fearful thought darted across my mind: Maybe he parked up the street, and he’s hiding inside, waiting to get me. Despite my fears, I opened the front door and stepped inside. I turned on a light and yelled for Mama.

  No answer.

  I closed the door and stood in the living room with my back pressed up against the front door. “Mama?” I called again. “Mama! Are you here?” I waited for an answer, but none came.

  I knew it was risky to stay in the trailer by myself, but I was so exhausted, my eyes were so heavy, and I just couldn’t run anymore. All I wanted to do at that moment was to lie down. I locked the front door and dragged myself to my bedroom.

  My legs were covered with scratches, and my skin burned and itched from rubbing up against the tall grass in the median. The blood from my nose that had poured down the front of my shirt and shorts had dried, leaving dark stains. I was too exhausted to care. I fell onto my bed and closed my eyes. I knew that if Tim found me before I woke up, I might awaken in heaven, but I just didn’t care.

  Seventeen

  SANTE SHOOT-OUT

  I’M NOT SURE HOW LONG I STAYED ASLEEP, OR IF I SLEPT AT all. But I was startled fully awake by a noise behind me, near the bedroom door. Lying on my stomach in bed, I quickly opened my eyes and flipped over on my right side.

  It was morning, and a bleary-eyed Tim was standing in the sun-drenched doorway of my bedroom. He was a mess. His eyes were bloodshot. And he was holding the gun in his right hand.


  I immediately sat up in my bed. My heart began pounding faster, loud enough that I could hear it.

  Tim glared at me, but neither of us said a word.

  My eyes darted back and forth, looking at the gun, then at his face, then back at the gun, and back to Tim’s face. I could see rage building in Tim’s bloodshot eyes. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I had to do something. I made a snap decision. I sprang from the bed like a cat and ran toward Tim full force, with both my arms extended forward. But as light-framed as I was, my effort only pushed him back slightly, toward the wall in the hallway. I could see the gun in his right hand, and it was aimed right at my heart.

  I rolled left, away from Tim, out through the living room, and bolted out the front door, running with all my might toward Grandpa’s trailer. I knew my life was completely out of my control now. There was no way Tim could miss if he decided to pull the trigger. He’s gonna shoot me in the back, I thought, as I ran for Grandpa’s front door. But for some reason, Tim didn’t fire.

  I burst into Grandpa’s trailer and to my surprise discovered that Mama had spent the night there. When I saw her, I immediately began pouring out my story of the events from last night. “Mama, you won’t believe it. Tim shot up Charlie Barber’s trailer, and then he tried to shoot me!” I showed her the blood on my shirt from where he’d hit me in the nose.

  Mama didn’t seem angry; she didn’t even appear concerned. She just nodded and acted like it was no big deal. “He’ll calm down sooner or later,” she said.

  I waited at Grandpa’s half the day before returning to our trailer later that afternoon. I hoped that by then Tim would have had enough time to sober up. Maybe he was back to being “good Tim”—at least, I prayed he would be.

  I slowly opened the front door and stepped inside the trailer, careful not to make any noise. It was ominously quiet, so I tiptoed toward the bedrooms. I looked to the left and saw Tim’s shoes hanging off the bed in the back bedroom. I moved farther down the hallway toward Mama’s and Tim’s bedroom. I flinched instinctively when I saw him, ready to run again if necessary, but then I saw he was asleep on his stomach, still wearing the same clothes he had been wearing the previous day. I quickly surveyed the room, looking for the gun, but I couldn’t spot it.

  On the dresser sat a box of bullets, surrounded by another handful of bullets strewn on the dresser, along with some change Tim had apparently been carrying.

  I slipped into the bedroom and gathered up the bullets, being extra careful not to make any noise by dropping any bullets onto the dresser top. When I was sure I had them all, I toted the bullets to my bedroom, where I closed the door behind me. I got down on the floor and crawled on my stomach all the way under my bed and hid the bullets in the far right corner against the wall. I quietly crawled back out from under my bed and hurried outside.

  By nightfall Mama went back to the trailer to reunite with Tim. When she didn’t return to Grandpa’s, I figured it was relatively safe to go home, so I followed behind her a few hours later.

  She and Tim were in their bedroom having a conversation when I walked in. Neither Mama nor Tim said one word about the events that had taken place the night before, so I didn’t either. It was as if nothing had even happened. It was totally weird.

  I spent the rest of the evening in my bedroom, trying to figure out what was going on and what, if anything, I should do. I didn’t really have a lot of options.

  My choice was made by default later that night when I woke up to the sound of glass shattering in our trailer. Someone had thrown a rock through the living room window.

  I glanced at a clock on the wall and noticed that it was close to 1:30 a.m. Whoever had broken our window hadn’t done so by accident.

  Then I heard Mama yelling out the front door, “Charlie, you need to leave now!”

  At first I thought Mama was talking about Charles, Tim’s son, but then I heard the voice of my older brother, Charlie Barber. “Come on outside, Tim,” Charlie Barber taunted. “We’ll see how tough you are.”

  By now Tim was awake and up. He ran down the hallway and burst into my bedroom. “Where’s the bullets?” he snarled at me.

  “I don’t know,” I said defensively.

  “Don’t mess with me, Jimmy,” Tim yelled. “Give me the bullets—now!”

  I got down on the floor and crawled under my bed and grabbed the box of bullets. As I did, I heard more glass breaking and men talking loudly outside.

  Charlie called out condescendingly again. “Come on, Tim. Come outside, Tim.”

  Another window shattered. Suddenly, rocks rained in through every window in the trailer.

  I slid out from under my bed with the bullets in my hand, stretching my arm toward Tim. He handed them back to me, along with the gun, and growled, “Load it!” A weird thought flitted through my mind; it occurred to me that maybe Tim didn’t know how to load the gun himself.

  But I knew he was serious, and something bad was getting ready to happen. My hands shook while I frantically loaded the gun. We were standing in the hallway under a small window. Mama was in the kitchen, yelling at Charlie, telling him to stop throwing rocks and to leave.

  I was shaking so badly, I couldn’t get the cylinder to close, so I handed the gun to Tim. He took a bullet out of the cylinder and reinserted it, and the cylinder snapped shut. Tim walked toward the kitchen with the gun in his right hand.

  I heard a noise and looked toward the front of the trailer. From my position I could see that Charlie had climbed up onto the tongue housing the hitch of the trailer, and he was leaning forward, crawling through the broken kitchen window.

  “Get down, or I’ll shoot you in the top of the head!” Tim roared at Charlie.

  Mama turned around and yelled, “Tim, please don’t shoot him.” Mama then turned back to her eldest son. “Leave, Charlie! Please, leave,” she begged. But the tone in Mama’s voice told everyone that she knew nobody was leaving anytime soon, and we may not leave alive.

  Charlie retreated from the windowsill, so Tim turned and strode back down the hallway to where I was trying desperately to be brave. He crouched under the small hallway window, stuck the barrel of the revolver out the broken window, and bellowed, “You better get outta here.”

  Charlie yelled back from somewhere, now on the front side of the trailer, “Come outside, Tim. You ain’t gonna come shoot up my house and git by with it. Come outside and let’s handle this like men.”

  “Charlie, please! Let’s go.” I recognized the woman’s voice outside; it was Cathy, my brother Charlie’s wife. Cathy was a mousy woman who never dared to contradict her husband. What was she doing here with this bunch of thugs?

  “Shut up!” Charlie railed in return.

  Those were the last words I heard before Tim pulled the trigger. Bam! The shot reverberated through the entire trailer. But since it was almost the Fourth of July, and many people in the Carolinas enjoyed setting off fireworks at night, the crackling sound of gunfire probably went unnoticed by the neighbors.

  Tim fired again and again. The first few shots didn’t faze Charlie or his comrades; they continued throwing rocks into our trailer and cursing at Tim, demanding for him to come outside while Cathy begged, “Charlie, please, come on. Let’s get out of here!”

  Mama warned Charlie to leave too.

  I heard people yelling and more glass breaking. Moments later Tim fired three more shots.

  A horrible wailing sound pierced the night air in the trailer park.

  The rabble-rousers stopped in their tracks, and everyone outside got extremely quiet—everyone except Cathy, that is, who had been sitting in the car, calling out to Charlie. Cathy continued screaming hysterically. It was a horrific sound, the most painful cry I’d ever heard.

  Then Charlie yelled, “You shot my wife!” He punched the front door of our trailer one more time and ran to his car, where Cathy was lying on her side in the front seat. Charlie and his cohorts piled into the car and roared out of Sante Trailer P
ark. Tim kept watch out the window for a couple of hours, in case Charlie might return, but everything remained calm for the rest of the night.

  IT WAS ALMOST DAYBREAK BEFORE MY HEART STOPPED RACING. “Pack your things,” Mama said. “We’re getting out of here.” I tossed some clothes and my prized possessions into two cardboard boxes. We immediately abandoned the trailer and fled to Tim’s uncle’s place in Crowders Mountain, where we waited for daylight.

  We learned later that Tim’s shots had missed Charlie and his friends but not Cathy, who had been sitting in the car directly in Tim’s line of fire. Ever the meek wife, she had waited behind the wheel of the car, just as Charlie had instructed her. At least three of Tim’s bullets ripped into Cathy’s body. She was shot in the shoulder and neck, and she must have tried to reel away or had lunged forward because Tim also shot her in the back.

  Although none of us were ever the same after that night, Cathy’s life was irrevocably changed. She never walked again. Thanks to Charlie’s and Tim’s macho nonsense, Cathy was paralyzed from her waist down for the rest of her life.

  Eighteen

  ON THE RUN

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, TIM WAS AGITATED. WITH EVERY CAR that passed by the trailer park, Tim’s body tensed in anticipation of the police coming to arrest him for shooting Cathy.

  I stood outside beside the Oldsmobile and watched Tim peel the broken windshield away from the black, sticky safety adhesive that was holding the shards of glass together. He spoke not a word the entire time he worked to replace the windshield. It was almost as though Tim were in a trance.

  Still anticipating his arrest, Tim worked feverishly to put the new windshield in place. When he finished, Tim said simply, “We need to get out of here. We’re leaving.”

  I sat in the car, and as Ms. Friday had taught me to do, I wrote in my notebook that I was using as a journal, “Tim just replaced the window in the car, and we’re getting ready to run from the law.”